Abstract

This book contains a series of studies that take the ancient texts as evidence of the past, and show how medieval readers and writers understood them. In particular, they examine how medieval readers examined the construction of these texts to find some reflection of how it felt to exist within the ancient world. The studies confirm that medieval and Renaissance interpretations and uses of the past differ greatly from a modern interpretation and uses, and yet the study betrays many startling continuities between modern and ancient medieval theories. Discussion extends from the nature of historical evidence, through theories behind medieval historiography, to various hypotheses relating physiological attributes of the brain to intellectual processes of the mind.